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The XPM
Frequently Asked Questions
This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about the
XPM format and/or library. If you don't find the answer to your problem here,
then you can mail either to lehors@sophia.inria.fr or to the mailing list
xpm-talk@sophia.inria.fr.
Contents
1. How do I convert my images to or from XPM ?
2. Why are my XPM files said to be invalid ?
3. Why does my program core dumps using XPM ?
4. Why does my program core dumps using XPM with a widget ?
5. How can I get a non rectangular icon using XPM ?
6. What exactly triggers the creation of a mask when using XPM ?
7. How should I use the mask ?
8. Is there a string to pixmap converter somewhere ?
9. How can I edit XPM icons ?
10. Is there a collection of icons somewhere ?
11. The documentation fails to print out. Why ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. How do I convert my images to or from XPM ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Netpbm is surely the best image conversion package that I know of. It defines
formats for color, gray and monochrome images and provides a set of filters.
Thus a GIF image can be converted to XPM with something like:
$ giftoppm youricon.gif | ppmtoxpm > youricon.xpm
The latest release can be found at least from wuarchive.wustl.edu
(128.252.135.4), directory /graphics/graphics/packages/NetPBM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Why are my XPM files said to be invalid ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three official versions of the XPM format. The XPM library since
version 3.3 can read all them but writes out only XPM 3. Also the small
program called sxpm which is part of the XPM library package can be used to
automatically translate XPM 1 and 2 files to XPM 3 with a command such as:
$ sxpm -nod yourxpm1or2file -o yourxpm3file
Also, the XPM format defines "None" to be the color name meaning
"transparent", but IXI used to hack the XPM library in its early days to
handle transparency as "#Transparent". This makes IXI format not compatible
with the official XPM format, and so not readable neither by the official XPM
library nor any of the programs built on top of it.
The only solutions are either to stick on IXI programs which can deal with
their format or convert your files to the standard XPM format. This can be
done simply by changing "#Transparent" to "None".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Why does my program core dumps using XPM ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Be sure the XpmAttributes structure you pass by reference has a valid
valuemask. You can give NULL instead if you don't want to use an
XpmAttributes but if you do, you MUST initialize its valuemask component to
some valid value, at least 0, otherwise unpredictable errors can occur.
So instead of doing something like:
XpmAttributes attrib;
XpmReadFileToPixmap(dpy, d, filename, &pixmap, &mask, &attrib);
you should do:
XpmAttributes attrib;
attrib.valuemask = 0;
XpmReadFileToPixmap(dpy, d, filename, &pixmap, &mask, &attrib);
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Why does my program core dumps using XPM with a widget ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
o First the XPM library is Xlib level, so don't pass your widget as a
Drawable parameter. A Drawable is either a Window or a Pixmap. The widget's
window can do the job but:
o Then a widget only gets a Window when realized, so passing XtWindow(widget)
with a not yet realized widget is wrong. Either realize you widget first or
use another window. Since the Drawable parameter is only used to specify
the screen to which the pixmap must be created on, most of the time the
default root window is just fine.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5. How can I get a non rectangular icon using XPM ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The X Window System does not support transparent color. However there are
several ways you can use to get the same visual effect using XPM:
o First you can use the None color to get a shape mask and use it as
explained below (question 7).
o Second you can define a symbolic color name such as "mask" in the XPM
format file, then use the color overriding mechanism to set this symbolic
color to the color of the underlying object. Note that in this case the XPM
library won't create a shape mask, and that if the color of the underlying
object is changed then you'll have to create a new pixmap.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6. What exactly triggers the creation of a mask when using XPM ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Basically a mask is created if "None" is used as one of the color of the
pixmap. Be aware that this is not only true if it is used in the XPM of the
pixmap since the colors can be overridden at load time. So a mask is created
if the "None" color is used at load time, coming either from the XPM
definition or the color overriding.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7. How should I use the mask ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There are basically two ways of using the mask:
o Use the mask as a shapemask with the X11 Nonrectangular Saphe Window
Extension. Typically this is what should be done when the icon is used in a
desktop.
o Use the mask as a clipmask in the GC you pass to XCopyArea when drawing the
pixmap. So the "transparent" pixels being not actually drawn will get the
underlying pixels colors.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Is there a string to pixmap converter for Motif ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Not yet, but Motif 2.0 does support XPM pixmap as well as XBM bitmaps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
9. How can I edit XPM icons ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As listed below several editors either commercial or not are supporting the
XPM format. However, pixmap is the one I would recommend since it is freely
available and, being fully dedicated to XPM, it allows to edit all the
special things, such as the symbolic color names, which makes XPM different
from all the other image formats. Pixmap can always be found by ftp from
ftp.x.org (contrib) and avahi.inria.fr (pub/pixmap).
Last Update: 3 August 1994
XPM Icon Editors
================
Program Source/Author Platforms SA XPM cost
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
pixmap Lionel Mallet source yes 3 NC
* ftp.x.org:/contrib/application/pixmap/pixmap2.6.tar.gz
* requires 3.4 or higher revision of Xpm lib.
* supports all XPM format features
* current version doesn't work on 24-plane displays
pixt J. Michael Flanery source yes 1 NC
* ftp.x.org:/contrib/pixt.tar.Z
* doesn't work on 24-plane displays
* last updated November 1991
pixed IXI Many UNIX no 3 N/A
* part of X.desktop
* current version doesn't work on 24-plane displays
olpixmap USL Sun no 1 N/A
SVR4.2, UnixWare
* packaged with the OLIT (OpenLook) toolkit
xfedor Daniel Dardailler source yes 3 NC
* only uses XLIB
* doesn't work on 24-plane displays
SCOpaint SCO/Wing Eng ODT yes 2.8 N/A
* included with the ODT package
pme.icn Icon Project source yes 3 NC
* written in the Icon language
PixEditT Free Widget Foundation source yes 3 NC
* there is currently no support for editing the colormap
xscribble Robert Forsman source yes ? NC
* requires the FWF, 8-bit pseudocolor
* ftp.cis.ufl.edu:/pub/thoth
* Alpha version (last updated April 1993)
vueicon Hewlett-Packard HP yes 3 N/A
* included with Vue3.0
iconedit V3 SunSoft Sparc/Sun3 yes 2 N/A
Pixmap Editor ICS ? yes ? ?
* this is a Widget, not a complete program
ezX Sunrise Software ? ? ? N/A
XPaint David Koblas source yes 3 NC
* full featured, works on all displays
* current release is 2.1.1 (last update January 1994)
Phoenix ohtcolor@niksula.hut.fi source yes 3 NC
* full featured, 24-bit painting program, requires Motif.
* nic.funet.fi:/pub/graphics/packages/phoenix/
* Beta version (last updated September 1993)
pixed Alsys Many UNIX yes 3 N/A
* pixed is part of the TeleUSE UIMS
* More info is available from service@ignite.alsys.com
display John Cristy source yes 3 NC
* ftp.x.org:/contrib/application/ImageMagick/ImageMagick-3.2.tar.gz
* lots of image conversion and manipulation features
SA - Stand Alone program
NC - No Charge (i.e. free); most programs are copyrighted.
XPM - XPM format supported
source - built from source code; likely works on all standard X platforms
N/A - icon editor is normally distributed with other software
Send updates, additions, corrections, etc. to
dan@bristol.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Is there a collection of icons somewhere ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At least there is one freely available: Anthony's X Icon Library. You can
found it on several ftp servers, such as server.berkeley.edu/pub/AIcons. It
contains only small icons (less than about 100x100 pixels in size) which are
stored in groups in a logical way. Color icons are stored in XPM format and
Black & White icons in XBM.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
11. The documentation fails to print out. Why ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The PostScript documentation file is formatted for US letter paper. Frame
Maker tries very hard to ensure that you have the right paper and punts if
you don't. However, you can easily work around this problem by applying the
following patch. If for some reason applying the patch fails, you can still
do it by hand. Just locate the corresponding block in the PS file and remove
the lines with a leading '-' character.
By the way, this applies to any doc generated by Frame Maker. The
corresponding block might be slightly different depending on which version of
Frame Maker was used, but it is still easy to locate.
*** xpm.PS Wed Sep 11 15:47:43 1996
--- xpm-A4.PS Thu Nov 21 09:27:28 1996
***************
*** 647,668 ****
0 ne /edown exch def
/yscale exch def
/xscale exch def
- FMLevel1 {
- manualfeed {setmanualfeed} if
- /FMdicttop countdictstack 1 add def
- /FMoptop count def
- setpapername
- manualfeed {true} {papersize} ifelse
- {manualpapersize} {false} ifelse
- {desperatepapersize} {false} ifelse
- { (Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!) FMFAI
LURE } if
- count -1 FMoptop {pop pop} for
- countdictstack -1 FMdicttop {pop end} for
- }
- {{1 dict dup /PageSize [paperwidth paperheight]put setpagedevice
}stopped
- { (Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!) FMFAI
LURE } if
- {1 dict dup /ManualFeed manualfeed put setpagedevice } stopped
pop }
- ifelse
FMPColor {
currentcolorscreen
--- 647,652 ----